


Connection

by keirajo



Series: The Love of Romance [20]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Love, M/M, Spark-bond, Very Dubious Consent, Violence, not shown/mostly offscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:55:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23536417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keirajo/pseuds/keirajo
Summary: Megatron has fallen, but can Rodimus' love save him?Final part of my "Dark Megatron" arc.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet, Megatron/Rodimus | Rodimus Prime
Series: The Love of Romance [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1222904
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	Connection

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this has been so slow--lots of doctors appointments and the weird work situation due to the weird status of the world right now. Honestly, I could've made this twice as long if I wanted to take two more weeks to work on it.
> 
> I don't think it deserves the Explicit rating, but because I mention rape and stuff, I'm leaving it at that. Have a cute E-for everyone viewing illustration: https://www.weasyl.com/~keirajo/submissions/1886226/idw-megatron-and-rodimus-chibi-dolls

**_ Connection _ **

The pain in Rodimus’ insides echoed a pain happening in the lower part of his frame. But he had no stable senses to evaluate his condition. His optics couldn’t focus and he was nearly to offlining completely. The flame-colored mech just had to……..

_Had to?_

**_No_** , he was ready to die—so, why couldn’t he just die now?

It wasn’t like he was going to be able to get his Megatron back. He wasn’t strong enough to stand against the powerful, grey-colored mech. _His Megatron_ was gone and Rodimus couldn’t even feel their Spark-bond anymore, anyways. So, why didn’t that stupid Decepticon just get it over and done with?!

As the world began to fade around him, Rodimus grasped onto the memories he cherished—the memories of his Megatron………..

~

_I was so absorbed in the movie, I never even realized I’d had Megatron sitting next to me in the theater—or that I had grabbed his servo—I’d forgotten all that. So, when the movie ended and suddenly when the credits rolled, when his lips landed on mine—I was surprised and touched and a little sad. When the lights in the theater clicked on, Megatron quickly pulled away and quickly wiped my lips with a thumb._

_“ **Wow**. Gonna watch rom-coms with you more often, Megs,” I chuckled softly, the words out of my vocalizer before I could stop them. My faceplate felt hot. Part of it was embarrassment, but part of it was shame and regret, because I really knew there couldn’t be anything more between us than that kiss._

_“It was the morality lock—I was still punishing myself and I **should not have been**. I punished myself for being left behind in the Functionist Universe………for over eight-hundred years, even though it wasn’t my choice and Terminus tricked me— **I felt I had betrayed you**. But when I watched you—your arm and half your side blasted off—demanding the matrix device in my servos………..you grabbed one side with your denta and the other with your remaining servo………… **and you opened it** ,” Megatron said to me as I kept wishing I could hide under the conference table in the captain’s ready room. “You were wounded and damaged and you were also a **glorious battlefield angel** , all at that moment. I chose to **stop punishing myself** at that moment. Now I want you to stop punishing yourself. We can start over, **together**.”_

_Could it be possible? Could I really be allowed to reach for this? For a relationship like this? I mean, I knew Megatron had changed. I may have taunted and provoked him, when he first came aboard, but he had……..he and Bumblebee had helped save Cybertron. I had a hunch that Megatron was honest about wanting to change—I don’t think he was good about trying harder to get there, but I thought he wanted to, even when I provoked him about not even trying to change._

_I raised my head to look into his faded red optic glass._

_“You really think so?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral and not as hopeful as I wanted to be._

_“Yes,” he said, smiling at me._

_I wanted so much to give it a try—it had been so long and I was so lonely………..and Drift was……….yeah, I wanted to have a really good relationship for once in my life. Maybe Megatron could be that really good relationship._

_Poetry! That voice and the poem—it could only be Megatron! He made it! My Spark wanted to explode with joy that he finally made it down to Lorka. I really thought he wasn’t going to come………..I didn’t even hear his actual commentary on the poem, I just ran up to him and wrapped my arms around him, hard. I was crying pretty hard, too._

_“What’s wrong? Why are you crying, my bright little flame?” Megatron asked, pushing me away a little bit, so he could look down into my faceplate._

_“ **Didn’t** ……. **wasn’t** ………. **not sure you** ………….. **were coming** ……..” I sobbed, hearing the strain and stress making my vocalizer cut in and out. I was so emotionally worked up, I didn’t even hear his explanation to me. “ **Glad you’re here** …….” I mumbled, pushing back against his chest and rubbing my faceplate against him. “ **So glad** …….”_

_“That’s……that’s really cool that you want me. **I like that**. You really **do** want me, right? You want me……………..and not just this frame and its obvious charms?” I asked, trying so hard to keep the longing and want inside of me and hoped that Megatron couldn’t hear it in my voice._

_I asked him and I begged him to be honest with me—to show me in total and open honesty how much he liked me……….I wanted him to let it show in his EM field. I knew that with this thing I just discovered I had, this dermal sensor net, it might overload me on emotions, but I didn’t care. Megatron couldn’t possibly lie to me with his field._

_I felt his love, passion, desire and want………….so weirdly. It was like they were colors or tasted and those emotions penetrated so deep into me—into my Spark and my program. It filled me up and overflowed and I grabbed harder onto Megatron’s tank treads. This was joyous and unbelievable and I was…………before I knew it, I overloaded, feeling the releases of charge and pleasure flood all through my frame._

_And it was just as precious that he held on to me after that. Hugging me warmly and gently, his servos stroking my back and head……..crooning little nonsense words to me. I felt loved and satisfied and…….I felt cherished. I didn’t want to let go of this, **ever**._

_We fragged……….or kinda close to it—he never penetrated me, he just rubbed his spike along my valve lips……in the washrack. We were both coming down off of the interfacing high—though we didn’t actually interface—but I grasped at the fact that Megatron’s field couldn’t lie. It was so honest and so needy and……._

_Megatron was really, really in love with me. He was in love with Hot Rod of Nyon—Rodimus of Nyon! Even Optimus Prime couldn’t make that claim—I was the one that conquered Megatron if Tarn’s Spark!_

_As usual, I was crying again in Megatron’s arms as the cleansing fluids dripped on us—but this time I was crying with happiness and joy. **Megatron of Tarn was in love with an unknown little mech from a broken and destroyed city on Cybertron—he was in love with Rodimus of Nyon**. I would cherish that for all the remainder of my life._

_Our first true time of “ **making love** ” was the greatest thing ever. It wasn’t the hot frag we’d had after that movie from the space mall—this was something beautiful and precious and it was interfacing on a level I’d never had ever before in my life._

_The berth in that Galactic Alliance world’s hotel was amazing! I’d never slept in anything so soft and plushy in my entire life! Of course, Megs wanted to frag in it before we planned to Spark-bond, but I complained and said I wanted to keep the plushy berth all nice and soft. And dry. It wouldn’t stay dry if we fragged._

_So, we fragged— **not** on the berth._

_And then we Spark-bonded._

_And there’s no really good way for me to explain the experience. It was……..epic. And afterwards, feeling Megatron’s Sparkspin echoing inside of me as well—yeah, it was just totally epic._

_It felt right, to do it, too. I mean, really—nothing ever went well in my life, this felt like the first thing that actually went good. We got to hold each other for awhile afterwards and talk softly about how we felt and how we’d shape our new future together._

_Megatron going into a heat-cycle was just about the craziest thing to happen, yet, on the **Lost Light**! We’d seen and done some pretty crazy things in our time, before Megatron came aboard and after he came aboard. But laying with him as he wound down from excessive horniness, it was just as great as sleeping with him on a normal night after fragging._

_I came out of the washrack in our hab suite, just as Megs was coming back after his shift. More than anything, I really wanted to throw myself against him and cry out all my pain, but……I didn’t want to stress him out, too. So, I just stood there and rubbed the towel against my neck. After a few moments, he walked past me and asked me to sit down on the couch with him._

_I just couldn’t bring myself to cuddle him, as I usually wanted to do. I was still upset over what I’d heard from the gossipers in the medi-bay earlier._

_“I want us to work out, Megatron…….. **I want it so badly** ,” I murmured. “But it feels like life is throwing every possible thing at us to not let us be together in the end.”_

_Megatron sighed and reached over to rub my helm, his field rippling with warmth and fondness._

_“Well, I think we just going to have to fight our way through **every adversity** , because I’m not going to give you up, Rodimus,” he said, all of his warmth and fondness echoing in his voice._

_It made me feel better. I shouldn’t worry about what people said, what was real and true were Megatron’s emotions—I could feel it with my EM field, with my dermal sensor net………and our Spark-bond. I crawled up more on the couch and cuddled up against him, finally._

_Megatron and I talked a lot after the virus outbreak on the ship. I think he was more worried than Ultra Magnus had been at the dangerous thing I’d done—provoking a virus-infected Magnus, who about crushed my neck-cabling and my hips in two very different confrontations. I had to keep talking it out with Megs, because Magnus refused to talk to me afterwards. I was unhappy at sacrificing the precarious friendship I had with Magnus, but if he never wanted to speak with me again………….I couldn’t control that._

_“It will be all right. Just give it a little bit more time,” Megatron said, kissing the top of my helm and his servo drifted down to places that said he wanted to do more than just cuddle that night._

_“Before we take it to the berth for more fun tonight, I want to tell you something, Megatron…….” I trailed off as he reached for me and pulled me against him, his arms tightening around my frame. I snuggled against him, listening to the spin of his Spark and the rapid humming of his cooling fans deep within him. “ **I want my flames back** ,” I murmured, nuzzling his neck fondly. “You make me burn and blaze brighter, Megatron. I wouldn’t be here— **I wouldn’t be becoming what I’ve always wanted to be** , deep in my Spark—without you.”_

_“Then I am proud to have the opportunity to do so,” the former warlord murmured, leaning his head down against mine. “And you are the savior of my own Spark, Rodimus. Without you—without the idea of you in my life—I would **never** be back here. I fought to get back to you.”_

_“ **Flatterer** ,” I laughed, purring softly deep in my vocalizer as I felt my engines revving up for more. Megatron stood up and held on to me as he turned towards the berth. “ **Silver-tongued devil** ,” I giggled as I felt his own engines revving._

_“Well, this **‘silver tongue’** definitely wants to do something **‘devilish’** right now, that is certain,” my lover chuckled, laying me down on the berth._

_“Bring it, you oldmech—show me your skills,” I laughed, grinning up at my older lover and splaying my frame on one of the most erotic poses I could think of._

_Megs stifled a little chuckle and then tossed his head back with laughter. We made a great pair, he and I._

_I was thankful for Megatron and I was glad he let me do my little pseudo-Spectralist little activity tonight. We laid there on the floor after interfacing and I was so very happy right then, for everything—even the stupidity of my life, because it brought me here, to this moment right now._

_“You’ve never had a good frame polish, have you, Megs?” I asked, pulling gently away from his frame, after polishing up his back. “You know, we can do this more often. You won’t be as sensitive if we do it more often, okay?”_

_“I don’t let people touch me, Rodimus. It was far too painful to allow anyone to be close enough for that,” my lover said, very softly._

_I frowned, but………I really did know how domineering he was. And kindness had been taken from him a long, long time ago. I also knew that after his time in the gladiatorial pits afterwards, Megs had lost all kindness for others, too. I hoped all that would change, someday. That we could change each other for the better. For now, I just leaned over him and placed a servo on his elbow joint._

_“Well, you have **me** now. You’ve been helping me out with my issues, let me help you out with yours,” I whispered, placing all the love and warmth I could into my voice and field._

~

“ ** _Rrrragh_** _!!!_ ” Twin voices growled, storming towards Megatron and Rodimus. 

Ultra Magnus and Thunderclash were moving as one, each of them grabbing one of Megatron’s shoulders and propelling the bulky grey mech away from the flame-colored one. Drift and Ratchet skidded to a stop right next to Rodimus and both mechs knelt quickly to check his condition. Ratchet flinched when Drift’s EM field ramped up to an angry storm level.

“ _Keep it in_. Rodimus needs your comfort now,” Ratchet snapped, suddenly, hitting Drift’s shoulder very hard. “We’ve got to get that collar off of Megatron and get a sample of that drug for Brainstorm to analyze! You need to get Rodimus back to the _Lost Light_ and into the medi-bay—I’m reading some internal hemorrhaging. His array is **_not_** in the shape that his insides are, so now is no time to play white knight!” He growled at his lover, hitting the swordsmech’s shoulder again to make him focus.

“ _Ratch! We’ve got him pinned—now would be a good time!_ ” Thunderclash roared.

Drift whipped a blanket out of a subspace pocket over his shoulder and began to wrap Rodimus in it, even as Ratchet stood up and sprinted over to the rock formation that Ultra Magnus and Thunderclash had pinned Megatron to. Then the former Decepticon warrior scooped up his flame-colored friend and ran back to the ship as fast as he could.

Ratchet got out a cutting tool and cut the collar on the two sides of it, slowly he pulled the front piece away, but the back stayed connected via the needles injected into Megatron’s neck-cabling. “Pull him forwards so I can get that back piece off,” the old medic snapped. He pulled a container out of subspace and watched as both bulky Autobots switched their grips on the grey-colored mech and wrenched him forwards. “Good, hold him steady as possible— _this isn’t going to be easy_!” Ratchet responded, gently placing his digits around the curve of the remainder of the collar at the back of Megatron’s neck.

He began to pull, slowly, so he wouldn’t frighten or hurt Megatron—until he heard the rumbling, feral growl begin forming in the former Decepticon’s vocalizer.

“ _Screw it_ ,” Ratchet muttered, wrapping his digits tightly around the collar piece and yanking it out hard, then threw it straight into the container and vacuum-sealed it.

Megatron gave a weird, strangled cry and then went unconscious in Ultra Magnus and Thunderclash’s grips.

“We’ve got to get back to the ship with this one, too—or we might lose both our captains,” Ratchet grunted. He raised a digit to his audial. **[Brainstorm, get to the medi-bay’s analysis lab right now—I’ve got a poison I need an antidote for right away!]** He sent to the Autobot scientist, even as he began to run back to the ship.

* * * * *

First Aid was completely in command of his medi-bay when Ratchet arrived with the two large mechs carrying Megatron. He was already working on Rodimus in a corner and immediately instructed Nickel and Velocity to work with Ratchet on Megatron. Internal hemorrhaging was absolutely a piece of cake and First Aid could handle that alone—but from what he understood Megatron’s condition might be, even three skilled medics may not be enough.

“ _Brainstorm, catch—lab’s in the back!_ ” Ratchet snapped as he saw the teal-and-white mech, throwing the container with the sealed piece of the collar in it at him. “ _Sooner than possible, if you can!_ ”

The mech caught the container easily, saluted, and kept on his pace towards the back of the medi-bay. Brainstorm had Rewind with him—for immediate encyclopedia information without having to turn to a computer. Although no one could figure out why Swerve was with them—what would a metallurgist have to do with a drug and poison? But Brainstorm was strange and it probably shouldn’t be surprising he’d take an illogical jump to get to a completely logical conclusion.

“I’m going to clear his nanites away from all internal areas, so they don’t swarm us while we’re working,” Nickel said, brandishing a patch. It was a medical device, more commonly called a “ _nanite fuel patch_ ”—it had elements that attracted a mech or femme’s self-healing nanites, they’d swarm to it and feed while medics worked on more damaged parts of the body that the nanites might have already had been trying to heal. She lifted Megatron’s head a lot easier than anyone might’ve thought she could have and placed the device on the back of the bulky mech’s neck-cabling, where the needle punctures were.

Even as she did so, Velocity began prepping tools and Ratchet was pulling open all the panels that he could in Megatron’s chest, arms and legs.

“ _Tch_. Now I see what they mean,” Ratchet muttered, looking at the internal organs that looked like they’d been chewed up, spit out, and then chewed back up again.

“This was a _poison_?” Nickel asked, frowning as she began taking some still shots and scans of the internal makeup of the former Decepticon. “What’s in the shielded area near his Spark?” She asked with a grunt.

“Trust me, you’d never believe me if I told you—but it’s a portal to the Dead Universe, basically a miniature black hole,” Ratchet responded.

“We surgically put a seal over it to protect his other internal organs from any dark matter leakage after…….. _well, yes, after **that**_ ,” Velocity murmured, shaking her head softly as she referred back to being on Necroworld and the battle with the DJD. “Probably a good thing we did, especially after he decided to make a relationship work out with Rodimus—he may not have been able to Spark-bond if we hadn’t put a shield over that.”

“ _Got it_. So, where do we start first?” The small blue-greenish femme asked, tilting her head at Ratchet.

“Fuel pump, fuel processor and ventilator system—then we designate organs to save after those,” Ratchet responded, reaching back to grab tools from the cart Velocity wheeled over to them. “Velocity, see if you can determine any excessive damage in his arms and legs while we work on the primary focal organs here.”

“ _Understood_ ,” the teal-and-white femme said, quickly.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the operating bay, First Aid drew the curtain around himself and Rodimus, to focus on working on his internals. Drift wouldn’t leave, so the CMO just asked him to remain silent and hold on to the flame-colored mech’s servo to try and stay calm. Staying calm would help ease Rodimus’ feelings, even if he were unconscious.

“What about…….. _his array_?” Drift asked quietly as First Aid took a pause to gather in a deep incycle and exvent.

“Drift. I know that you’re angry about evil Megatron raping your Amica or something like that, but……. ** _look_**. Honestly, Rodimus has had more brutality to his array from other people he willingly interfaced with as opposed to what Megatron was doing,” the small chief medical officer sighed, sterilizing his instruments one more time before focusing back on his sealing work on Rodimus’ internal organs. “I’m not particularly worried about his array and I don’t think he is, either. You can’t mean to say you don’t know Rodimus’ past—he hasn’t been shy about it. Quiet maybe, but he’s admitted to many unhealthy relationships.”

“ _Yeah. **No**_. I suppose I did know,” Drift murmured softly.

“He’s not an innocent. Don’t treat him like one. Treat him like _an equal_ ,” First Aid said, leaning back down into Rodimus’ chest cavity and sealing microfractures in his ventilator system. “He wants honesty. And if you don’t give him honesty, he won’t be honest back. If you lie to him or hide things from him, he’ll mirror that—he’ll lie and hide things from you. He’ll pretend other things instead. But if you’re honest with him—angry, sad or happy—he’ll be honest with you.”

“I’ll try,” Drift sighed.

“Drift, what does a Spark-bond look like?” First Aid said, suddenly.

“ ** _I_** _………uh_ , I don’t think I really know. Ratchet and I are bonded, but through Sparklight—so, the way we feel each other is more because we’ve done millenia of Sparklight bonding,” he answered. “It’s like……like we have a connected set of wiring, really. We can get a general sense of each other. _Impulses_.”

“ _Hunh_ ,” the little red-and-white mech murmured. “These two touched Sparks in their bonding—fused a bit of their cores to each other. _I see_ ,” he chuckled.

“ _What_?” Drift asked, standing up and looking into his best friend’s open chest cavity.

Then he saw it, just every once in awhile, through the slightly open aperture of the flame-colored mech’s Spark-casing. A swirl of green amongst the blue-white of a normal Spark. Megatron had a point-one-percenter Spark………it was green. So, did a fusion type of Spark-bonding cause more sensitivity to one another—more than just a general sense of one another? If so, then how did Megatron ever block the Spark-bond these past few days?

First Aid murmured a few soothing things and set back to work intently.

* * * * *

“ _Got it!_ I’ve got an anti-tox brewing now,” Brainstorm said, loudly, coming into the surgical area.

“Good, as soon as it’s ready—prep for a fuel line flush first,” Ratchet snapped, glancing back at Brainstorm for a moment and then over at Velocity and Nickel. “I hope you’re brewing a lot, Brainstorm—there’s a lot of damage to try and counteract here, but a fuel line flush will help get the process started.”

“I’ll make sure you get plenty, Ratchet,” the teal-and-white scientist chuckled, ducking back into the hallway and headed for the lab. 

“I’ll be curious to hear his findings,” Nickel grunted, working on her piecemeal patchwork on neural clusters in Megatron’s shoulders and arms. “When it’s all over. Think he’ll live?” She murmured.

“He’d better, _or I’ll kill him_ ,” Ratchet muttered, still focused on fuel pump and ventilator system surgery.

Velocity gave a little chuckle at the medically morbid statement. Ratchet was pretty sure that Megatron was going to live. The grey-colored mech had fought for millions of years to live—he cheated and faked deaths in order to live. He actually died once, in order to live. And what had he been fighting so fiercely to live for after all these millenia? _Conquest? Domination?_ None of that applied to Megatron anymore, it shouldn’t—he got to live 800 years of a life he’d originally intended to live, a life of a freedom fighter and saving a world. The life he wanted before the Senate’s pet mnemosurgeons made mincemeat out of his brains.

_And now he had Rodimus._

Megatron would never, ever have chosen a Spark-bond unless he truly wanted it. The fact that he had—the fact that he chose Rodimus to be bonded to for the remainder of his life!—all of that meant something very important and surely Megatron of Tarn was not going to give up now on this new life of his.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the medi-bay’s surgical area, First Aid was working tirelessly on Rodimus’ surgery and was almost done with it. Just a little bit more to clean up and he’d be finished and……he’d go take a quick shower before offering to help Ratchet and the others. The small CMO gave a deep exvent of relief as he finally closed up Rodimus’ chestplating and turned on the lights to look at the interface array.

“This is fine, Drift—there’s no damage. It’s just a bit of _rough ‘facing_ ,” First Aid said, soothingly, as he got out some cleaning supplies for the more sensitive areas of the frame. Then he took a few quiet moments to clean up Rodimus’ valve. The valveplating was a bit dented and damaged—forced open, of course—but it could be fixed easily. The red-and-white mech hummed softly to himself as he smoothed the damaged valveplating back into its proper shape and then it closed up easily.

“But mentally, I mean…….?” Drift asked, his voice quiet and worried.

“I doubt this is going to hurt Rodimus mentally or emotionally—he was in a state where he was ready to die, he’d accepted his sparkmate was gone forever. He’s merely back to square one of his healing process,” the small CMO said, lightly patting the swordsmech on the shoulder. “Stay with him and when he wakes up, tell him to stay abed for a while. We’ll keep him apprised of the situation with Megatron.”

With that, First Aid pulled the curtain aside for a moment to leave and then put it back.

Drift frowned, but he knew the Autobot medic was right. He and Rodimus never pried much into one another’s pasts, but it didn’t mean they weren’t unaware of some of each other’s life complications. And First Aid was right—if Drift got pushy and lied or covered the truth, Rodimus might likely go into a tantrum or start to do the same by hiding what he was truly feeling. Supportive, that was what Drift needed to be—he needed to be understanding of Rodimus’ situation and supportive of his getting through it. He didn’t need to butt in and force his own views on the flame-colored mech’s.

Drift listened to the sounds of Megatron’s surgery going on at the far side of the large operating bay. Eventually he heard Brainstorm’s voice again and got the understanding that things were nearly finished over there. Then it quieted down, he heard Ratchet grumble about finally being finished and voices moved around the room out there—even as EM fields quieted down and left the room.

Ratchet poked his head in and motioned for Drift to step outside of Rodimus’ area for a moment.

“Now, look. We’ve all done our best for everyone here. Don’t heap anything on Rodimus, you understand?” The old Autobot medic asked his lover, folding his arms across his chest. “Megatron will take a little bit longer to recover. We took care of the hardest part—the surgery, we flushed the remainders of the toxins out of his frame and the nanites are working on healing him now. His brain………..well, somehow that got nuked and I think it’s whatever he did to block the Spark-bond—we think he blocked off his actual primary memory core, as well, and the reason he regressed into an older version of himself, it was from the auxiliary memory unit. **_That_** may not have contained his most up-to-date memories.”

“That’s too weird, Ratty,” Drift said with a soft sigh.

“And when have things on this ship ever been _‘normal’_?” The old medic chuckled, reaching over to pat his lover’s shoulder fondly. “And, looking at everything that way, Megatron is the most abnormal of us all.”

“I suppose you’re right. Do you mind, I’m going to stay with Rodimus for a little while—see if he wakes up and I can explain things to him if the medics aren’t around?” The white-and-grey swordsmech asked.

“I’d appreciate if you would. I’m going to take a shower and a nap like the rest of the medics are,” the old Autobot medic responded with a smile. Then he leaned over and kissed Drift’s forehead fondly. “ _Just_ ……..be his friend, not his protector. There’s nothing to really protect him from, right now—except himself.”

Drift nodded and then ducked back into the curtained off area around Rodimus. He sat back down in his chair and then incycled and exvented in a rhythm, to calm himself down. He did some light recharging and some meditation and at some point, Rodimus did wake up.

The flame-colored mech looked up and around, trying to figure out where he was, when it eventually dawned on him that it was in the medi-bay back on the _Lost Light_. He reached a servo up and touched his chest—he felt the weird “ _renewed_ ” tingling in his chest which meant surgery and self-healing nanites had been working on him for awhile.

“Feeling better?” Drift asked when Rodimus’ head finally tilted over towards him.

“I suppose. I’m more shocked that I’m actually alive—either that or the Afterspark looks a whole lot like the medi-bay…………and that would be _really disappointing_ right now,” the flame-colored mech said, softly. He chuckled and then groaned as it made his whole chestblock hurt. “Is Megs dead? I can’t feel him, **_still_** …….” he murmured, the servo on his chest going up to rub his head, gently.

“ _No_ , but he’s still offline right now—it was a major surgery and he’ll be abed awhile,” the swordsmech answered. “First Aid wants you to remain abed for a bit now.”

“Yeah, I don’t feel much like moving if even laughing makes my chestblock all hurty,” the flame-colored mech responded with a smile. “If it’s over, then why can’t I feel him again……..yet? _It’s……….I just_ ………..” he whispered, sadly.

Drift leaned in and took Rodimus’ nearest servo in both of his. Then he gently kissed the flame-colored mech on his forehead.

“Let’s fix that. Let’s _‘look’_ for Megatron within you,” the swordsmech said. “Offline your optics and let’s cycle-and-vent.”

Rodimus did that and then incycled and exvented softly. He felt himself relax—that was one of the best things to come out of his time with Drift, he really had learned to do something useful with meditation.

“You told me when you bonded you had a journey-like experience. You set yourself with visuals as you searched his Spark—let’s do that again,” Drift murmured near his audial. “Picture yourself somewhere and you’re looking for him, _but feel it out with your Spark_.”

Rodimus focused and set himself to doing just that…………..

~

_The landscape that was there was dark and it was barren—I got no sense of anything around me, even though I could only see what was in front of me, because my Spark was my searchlight. This is what it felt like—empty and lonely—because I couldn’t feel our bond anymore._

_But Megatron was still alive, so the bond had to be here. You could only break a Spark-bond by dying. Neither one of us were dead, so the Spark-bond was still here. Even if I couldn’t see it or feel it anymore. The bond was somewhere, I just had to find the “physical” part of it that would manifest in this landscape. But how do I find something when I wasn’t even all that sure what it looked like?_

_Though, **yeah** , everything right now was in my imagination anyways—so, maybe the question should be: “ **What did I want it to look like?** ”_

_Now **there** was a thought!_

_What did I think the Spark-bond should look like? What kind of connection would it be? A rope? A cord? I wasn’t sure, right at that moment. But……….it should be………….something ………… **appropriate**._

_What was that old Earth piece of folklore? A red string wound around the pinky of each partner foretold of a true love connection?_

_Yeah, **that** was what I wanted._

_So, I looked down at my servo and saw it—the red string around the smallest digit of my servo. Now all I had to do was to follow it and I’d find Megatron again. I reached down and took a little bit of the string across the palm of my other servo and slowly began to walk forwards, following the length of the string._

_It felt like I was moving for a very long time, until I came to this strange block or wall or something, where the string disappeared into it. **How did that stupid dumbaft do this?!** Was he really trying to protect it—our bond? This was going just a little bit overboard, though—it was more like he was trying to keep things out instead of being protected. I reached out and rapped my servo against the block-wall-thing and there was no sound._

_So, clearly knocking and asking to be let in wasn’t going to work._

_I would have to break right through the damn thing!_

_“You stupid, **stupid** mech. Why do you make things so difficult?!” I cried._

_“I don’t let people touch me, Rodimus. It was far too painful to allow anyone to be close enough for that,” my lover said, very softly._

_**That** was why, of course. He still hadn’t gotten past all that yet, not even with me—not even for me. I sighed and planted my servos on my hips, looking at the block-wall-thing. I was still a person, even though I wasn’t one of the ones that had ever hurt him. There was something very sad about that thought._

_“Well, I think we just going to have to fight our way through **every adversity** , because I’m not going to give you up, Rodimus,” he said, all of his warmth and fondness echoing in his voice._

_“Fine. Fighting our way through it all, hunh? So, it’s my time to fight—and if I’ve gotta fight your own stupid problems to get you back, then I will!” I snapped, raising my arms and charging up my arm-piping to max limit._

_Yeah, maybe it was a psychotic-visual version of reality, but it was going to work—because I needed to get my Megs back. I aimed at the center of the wall-block-thingie and poured all my shots into the center spot where the red string was trailing out of. The first round of shots barely did anything but make the thing glow a fierce orange color._

_“ **Rrrraaaarggggh**!” I yelled, opening it up completely and sent all my most powerful shots powering into the blockade—eventually shattering it._

_**There it was. My bond……..my Megs.**_

_Before something else completely stupid came in to steal it from me, I dashed forwards and scooped up the light that was my bond and the missing piece of my Spark. Dammit if I was never going to let this happen again, ever—even if I had to punch stupid Megatron in his always so smug-aft faceplate!_

~

“I found it, Drift………… _I found my Megs_ ………” Rodimus murmured, meeting Drift’s optics as he came back online out of his meditative trance. “I can feel him. And how much pain he’s in.”

“ _Good_. Now we can all relax, right?” The grey-and-white swordsmech chuckled.

“Yeah. I hope he isn’t blaming himself for what happened,” the flame-colored mech sighed. “I guess we’ll talk when one or the other of us can get up out of the medical berths and see each other.”

* * * * *

In about two days, First Aid gave Rodimus the okay to get up from the berth and move about, though the flame-colored mech was very reluctant to leave the medi-bay while his lover and co-captain was there. Megatron still had not awoken, though his vitals were looking just fine according to everyone in the medical bay. There had certainly been a lot of discussion about what the Trylians did and about the drug, Corodine—which Brainstorm analyzed and called it “ _pretty wicked_ ”. A drug that could be pleasurable or fatal, depending upon a final element added to it………able to be tailor-made to any species’ needs.

Ultra Magnus had reassigned duties on the bridge to command staff while the two captains were currently unreleased for duty. Rodimus felt a little guilty, because he knew First Aid would clear him for duty if he asked, but he just didn’t feel like doing all that much until he knew whether Megatron would wake up soon or not. So, the flame-colored mech just kept working on doing stuff in the medi-bay while he waited.

The fourth day since their surgery, that was when Rodimus felt Megatron stirring, even before the large grey-colored mech had fully come online. He went to the private room that they had eventually put Megatron in and caught Velocity as he walked back. She entered the room with him and checked all of the former Decepticon’s vitals—then smiled at Rodimus as she elected to leave the two of them alone for awhile.

It still took a little bit longer before Megatron’s optics glowed and then a little longer still before he tilted his head and focused on Rodimus standing at the side of the medical berth.

“What happened? How did I get back to the ship?” Megatron murmured, his voice a little staticky with disuse the past few days.

“ ** _Lots_** happened. I’m sure someone will tell you later. _Maybe_ ,” Rodimus said with a shrug. “How do you feel, Megs?” The flame-colored mech asked, leaning down and setting his head lightly on his lover’s shoulder.

“Clearly I’ve been injured, but I seem to be all right,” the bulky grey mech answered, raising his servo and resting it lightly on Rodimus’ helm. “I seem to be missing some memories………..” he murmured.

“If you don’t need ‘em, then it’s fine. Just as long as you don’t forget me,” Rodimus said, listening to the hum of Megatron’s systems and the spin of his Spark.

“I’m not sure how I ever could, my flame,” Megatron chuckled.

Unfortunately, Megatron didn’t know that _he actually had_. Rodimus wasn’t going to tell him. He’d let Ultra Magnus deal with it. The flame-colored mech had his sparkmate back and that’s all he cared about right now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next we have the fallout of this arc. *bows*


End file.
